Malaybalay tourist spot: Ereccion del Pueblo

MALAYBALAY CITY | TOURISM BUKIDNON – Bukidnon Online first wrote about this Malaybalay City tourist spot – Ereccion del Pueblo – two years ago. Reportedly, the Malaybalay Citygovernment allocated Php 825,000.00 for the consultancy services of the person in-charge of the design of the Ereccion del Pueblo. Bukidnon Online has yet to know exactly how much the city government paid for the actual construction of this Malaybalay City tourist spot. Does anybody know? Please leave a comment below 🙂

The question now is – is Ereccion del Pueblo Malaybalay worth the trouble, space and money? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Please also let us know if you’ve already visited this Bukidnon tourist spot.

By the way, a person who goes by the name Anilaw Inlantong and who describes himself as a defender of Indigenous Peoples, left a comment on our first Bukidnon blog entry about Ereccion del Pueblo. He says that this Malaybalay tourist spot did not undergo the “consensus” and customary processes of Bukidnon tribes. Read the rest of his comment here.

Anyways, for those interested to visit this tourist spot in Malaybalay City Bukidnon, Ereccion del Pueblo is located at the Plaza Rizal. It now occupies the area where the old plaza stage used to be. Ereccion del Pueblo is along Fortich Street, the main thoroughfare in Malaybalay City.

I’m going to make my reply to the indigenous people’s representative here because in Feb. 2011 I had lived in Malaybalay only a month and knew nothing of the area. Since 2004 when I first came to The Philippines and learned a bit of history I have wondered many things, but one in particular has baffled me.

Many people I talk to have an anti-colonial (often manifested as anti-American) attitude, yet the national dress or “barong tagalog” is a direct result of Spanish colonial order. It is transparent and must be worn untucked so that indigenous people could not hide and use blades such as knives and bolos against their Spanish masters. Why would people adopt such a costume as the national costume of the country?

The statue in the plaza is a monument to colonial suppression so why also would that thing be put in place? There is a small monument behind Yoly’s Fastfood and LBC that is to Japanese who died in WW II while the Japanese were here killing and enslaving thousands of Filipinos. Why is that monument allowed to even exist?